Bedlington Terriers win Northern League programme of the year

Bedlington Terriers’ matchday programme ‘The Terrier’ has picked up a highly prestigious honour after it was voted as the best in the Northern League.

There are 44 teams that compete every season for the award, and the Terriers fought off the competition to come out on top of the pile.

North Shields came second while South Shields and Jarrow Roofing claimed third and fourth spot respectively.

The programme is designed and edited by student sport journalist Andrew McDonnell.

He said: “To now say that I am an award-winning journalist is quite surreal.

“At the start of the season I really didn’t have any idea as to what to include in a matchday programme, it was foreign territory for me.

“I took the role to help the club out, and now look, it just goes to show that hard work and commitment actually does pay off.”

From the start of the season to now, the design and content has changed a lot, and judges praised its “strong and entertaining content”, its “sharp and colourful” design and its “originality”.

McDonnell added: “I like to take pride in whatever I do, and when you look at the first programme of the season against Dunston UTS to the one against North Shields and Guisborough Town, it has changed.

“You see design and content at all levels that have been copied off one another and that was the main objective for me not to do because I wanted originality.

“We have Jonathan Molik penning a column from the USA and Ray Gowans in South Africa, so that alone stands out from the crowd.

“I wanted to bring supporters and readers of my programme something different, something that they would be able to take home and read over and over again.

“The comments that I have received on all social media platforms, emails and texts is great, it is always nice to hear back positive feedback from the readers.”